From the Margins of the State to the Presidential Palace: The Balanta Case in Guinea-Bissau (original) (raw)

THE PEN AND THE PLOUGH: BALANTA YOUNG MEN IN GUINEA-BISSAU

Up to less than two decades ago, the Balanta of Guinea-Bissau constituted what could be described as a “deep rural society” for whose identity rice production and cattle accumulation were central. However, it could also be argued that, already in the early days after Independence (1974), the social aspirations of Balanta young men matched those of other Guinean youths in their shared will to run away from the strictures of gerontocracy and of rural life. Surprisingly, however, this study documents the agency of many rural Balanta young men in changing oppressive social rules, and in using agriculture as a means to fund their studies, to feed their families and as a route to prosperity. We conclude that the persistent political instability in the country (most acutely felt in the capital city) and the national and global economic crises, together with the Balanta agricultural ethos, and the softening of gerontocratic power are at the root of this revaluing of rural livelihoods. The study presents a challenge to dominant narratives about the crisis of young men in contemporary Africa and reveals the need to study the aspirations and achievements of youth in their rural-urban nexus from a historical and holistic perspective.

From ‘People's Struggle’ to ‘This War of Today’: Entanglements of Peace and Conflict in Guinea-Bissau

Africa, 2008

This article aims at contributing to our understanding of violence and warfare in contemporary West Africa by adopting a bi-focal analysis that looks both at power struggles within the urban elite and at the grassroots multi-ethnic setting in southern Guinea-Bissau. I pay close attention to the social dynamics of rural peoples' perspectives, coping strategies and inter-ethnic conflicts. Local conflicts are elucidated as an ongoing process that traverses times of war and peace. Although they are subject to manipulation by urban actors, local conflicts are also a matter of continuous negotiation and partial consensus at the grassroots. In stark contrast to this, the struggles in the ruling group are characterized by an escalating spiral of factionalism, diminishing compromises and elimination of rivals. By analysing the relationship between urban and rural actors and the role of cosmology, the article also aims to shed new light on the multiple shapes patron–client relations can a...

2015. Resistance is Fruitful: Bijagos of Guinea-Bissau. Peace and Conflict Management Working Papers Series, No.1, pp.1-9.

Drawing on both ethnographic and historical accounts, this paper describes how ethnic identification patterns of belonging are fashioned out of localized, national, regional, and global processes of both engagement and protectionism. The Bijagos of Guinea-Bissau have maintained a sense of group cohesion during periods of contact, conflict, and resistance. This paper argues that the contemporary local-global interplay is fostering a new moment of rupture in time and space for the Bijagos. The Bijagos, oft footnoted in the accounts of Bissau-Guinean culture and history, are actively contributing to the social dialogue of resistance against the homogenizing effects of globalization. How do the Bijagos experience cultural, political, and economic pressures: positively as innovations leading to advances in interests, or negatively as disorienting and alienating?

Debating Land in Africa: An Analysis of the Impacts of Colonialism and Neoliberalism in Guinea-Bissau’s Agrarian Transition

2021

The present article presents and problematizes the agrarian question in the African continent in general correlated with the specific experience of Guinea-Bissau from the neoliberal period. An attempt was made to present a historical radiography that marked the land debate on the continent and continues today, mobilizing several authors from different regions of Africa and confronting them with the cabralist perspectives (Amílcar Cabral) on how agriculture and industry should stimulate each other, in balance and harmony, also considering the issue of gender/work, to leverage the African peasantry. Constituting an ongoing research, we mobilized some authors for the debate but without exhausting their thinking. Our analytical stance sought to adopt a more introductory and less complex approach to discussions, incurring all the risks that this methodical strategy presents. However, we hope to have provided the input for understanding the debate on land in Africa.

"Uma Guiné Melhor”: the psychological action and the spatialization of population control in rural areas. The strategic villages in Guinea-Bissau between 1968-1973

Africana Studia, 2023

In the last decade of Guinea-Bissau colonization, the Portuguese government accelerated the process of territory occupation. While colonial administration announced to promote and improve living conditions of the Guinean population, nevertheless the population experienced a violent intrusion in their private and public life by the colonial authorities. The effective territory occupation and the clash with the rural population started during the War of Independence and especially during the government of Governor General António de Spínola (1968-1972), under the so-called “Uma Guiné Melhor” (“A Better Guinea”) plan. The plan has not only been a psychological-propaganda campaign, but it revealed a clear military occupation strategy to achieve through the construction and the development of “strategic camps that imprison” the local population (Ledda, 1970:119). The aim of this paper is to examine the construction of those strategic camps, to explore the housing typologies and to question the social, spatial and economic impact on the life of the rural Guinean population. This article aims to frame the controversial messages of the integration policy acclaimed in the “Uma Guiné Melhor” plan by exploring and analysing the strategies of spatialization of people in action between 1968-1973.